That McCumber piece was horrible beyond words. He started with rational choice theory, then kind of stuffed everything else he didn't like about capitalism into a blender, hit pulse 10 or 20 times, and arbitrarily called the result "rational choice philosophy". Was he really meaning to attack the self interest theory of rationality as an ethical construct? Because he didn't. Was he attacking choice as a value among competing values in such a way that we could see how he'd trade choice for something else? Not really. All we know is he doesn't like a philosophy he made up that apparently calls the aggregation of power the definition of ethical behavior.

The hilarious part is when he invoked the dreaded quantum uncertainty monster. Sounding just like Deepak Chopra, he's all "rational choice implies that reason permits you to analyze unbreakable causal chains, which quantum science (ugh!) clearly says is impossible." Sure, if you are an electron.

I also liked the sublimely abusurd "the world today is infected with this product of the RAND corporation, as evidenced by institutions that grow wealth ... having wealth. And power. Ha! I've dealt capitalism a fatal blow!" Because, you know, nobody in history had ever thought of power enabling them to do more stuff than no power. Nope, that's RAND and the Kochtopus baby.

I'm not an ethical rationalist. I don't think you can get ought from is, and I don't think it is reason that tells me I should suffer a single paper cut if it saves 10 million babies somewhere. If that's what he was getting at, he should just refer people to Hume. This piece was a jumble of poorly argued philosophy with social activism and honest to golly hegelian marxism thrown in. Zoiks how did that make it past the editor ...

My first attempt at addressing him went about three times longer than what I ended up actually posting. There's so much wrong with his original piece that it probably would have been shorter to say "he's right that rationality can't fully account for ethics" and leave it at that.

I had the same thought about Hume, who argued for skepticism about causality and the inadequacy of rationality as applied to ethics. But of course Hume wouldn't have gotten homeboy to the promised land of peace and love where we transcend the petty interests of the individual in pursuit of the universal Will.

JasonL wrote: Zoiks how did that make it past the editor ...

1) I have my doubts that the editor knew what a Hegel was, let alone what to do with it.

2) There doesn't seem to be any coherence or plausibility requirement to publish a piece in the NYT Editorial pages.

"Is a Lulztopia the best we can hope for?!?" ~Taktix®
"Inexplicably cockfighting monsters that live in your pants" ~Jadagul

This is part of what I'm getting at in the 2012 for Obama thread. Expressions of doooommm make it seem like nothing could possibly be worse than this. That's fucking crazy talk. Almost everything else that has ever happened in human history is considerably worse than what we have going on now. To hit the reset button in a fundamental way ... I don't get it.

I think you're overlooking the fact that Republicans were bending over backwards themselves to defend a president who was not-very-conservative on many issues. When your team is in power: it must win no matter how dumb it acts, less the other guys get in power. When your team is out of power, it's RAH TEAM RAH. STOP THE OTHER TEAM AT ALL COSTS.

Hindu is the cricket of religions. You can observe it for years, you can have enthusiasts try to explain it to you, and it's still baffling. - Warren

I am rewriting my resume and applying for the job; I also sent a pitch to the British blog about it, and if they don't buy it (they probably won't, cause their budget is shit until autumn), I'll post it myself.

It's my standard resume, except each job description is tweaked to emphasize my qualifications for the job. Specifically, my willingness to tell bald-faced lies completely at odds with reality. Jennifer the high school teacher: taught certain courses, rewrote curriculum, "Lied to parents when necessary to be optimistic about offspring's future prospects: 'Your child is destined for a happy competent adulthood characterized by wise, intelligent decision-making, all thanks to your excellent helicopter parenting'."

"Myself, despite what they say about libertarians, I think we're actually allowed to pursue options beyond futility or sucking the dicks of the powerful." -- Eric the .5b